A Window to the Past
by Angel of Fire SG1
Summary: It's the Marauders 7th and final year at Hogwarts and evil is brewing in the wizarding world, James is starting to realise he might actually have a chance with Lily (JL)
1. Prologue

**A WINDOW TO THE PAST**

**Summary: **It's the Marauders last year at Hogwarts and evil is stirring in the wizarding world…(J/L)

**Rating: **PG

**Disclaimer: **It's not mine, it's all JK Rowling's I'm just borrowing the Marauders for this story…and the school…and u know…the general concept…lol

**Spoilers: **Just in general

**Author's Note: **Hi…this is my first Harry Potter fan fic…OK I lie I wrote two…3 years ago that I intend to delete off this website because they are ridiculously bad lol, but yeah, just sit back and I hope u enjoy!!!

**Prologue**

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"James Potter."

James spun around to see the long red hair and green eyes of Lily Evans.

"Hi Evans…" he said, looking at his best friend Sirius Black, confused as to why she was talking to him.

Lily Evans had never forgiven him for being…well a guy…she had never liked the way he acted and treated other people. Always trying to see the good in the people that didn't deserve it.

"You got all your books yet?" she asked, walking up to them.

"No, that's why we're here," Sirius replied. "Or do you just walk around Diagon Alley because you feel like it?"

"I meant have you finished shopping or are you just starting?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

"Oh…" Sirius looked sheepish and began looking around him for someone else to call to.

He didn't know anyone.

"Where's Remus?" Lily asked.

"Uh…Lupin's meeting us at Sirius's place later," James said.

"Oh?" she looked surprised. "I thought you guys lived together."

"Where'd you hear that from?" Sirius asked, looking defensive.

"Come off it Sirius, everyone knows your family thinks your some kind of black sheep...don't get me wrong that's a good thing when it comes to family's like yours," she said. "You could've ended up like Lucius Malfoy or worse…."

To anyone else James would have shouted something in Sirius' defence, but he couldn't bring himself to do so.

"You're right," Sirius said. "I'd rather people knew I lived with James than thought I was like my family. Thanks Lily."

She smiled. "You wanna come get some ice cream."

"Nah, we should really go meet Moony," James said.

"Wanna come?" Sirius added.

James glared at him. Lily looked at James' face and then a look of hurt crossed her face. For a moment James was convinced she was upset by his expression. Was that possible? Did she actually care if he didn't want her around? He suddenly felt bad. He didn't want to hurt her feelings.

"Yeah come," James said.

She looked at him, surprised.

"OK," she replied, "I just have to grab our new Defence Against the Dark Arts text book, be right back."

She ran off into the nearest store. Sirius turned to James.

"She likes you," he said, grinning.

"What?" James looked shocked. "She hates me."

"It's a cover you idiot," Sirius said, shaking his head. "You are really thick."

James looked at her. "No way."

Sirius didn't reply, just looked ahead, grinning in his own secretive way. His hair was flopping in front of his eyes, as usual, waving in the wind. His dark eyes were mysterious, almost scary. Sirius was shorter than James, but what he lacked in height he made up for in personality.

"Ready?" Lily asked, appearing in front of them.

"Yep," Sirius said.

Sirius and Lily began walking around trying to find a place where they could travel using floo powder back to Sirius's apartment. He'd moved out from living with James and his family only a few weeks earlier, he felt like he was a burden on them and he was now old enough to have his own place so he did.

James walked behind the two of them. He watched Lily carefully. Could she possibly like him? But all those years telling him off, saving the people he'd been tormenting. How could she possibly like him after all he'd done? She was beautiful…

What was he thinking? This was Lily Evans. Lily who liked everyone in the school, except him. Lily who was smart and clever…Lily who saw the best in everyone, Lily who could have any guy in the school….like him? Never. Sirius was delusional.

Sure he'd liked her since…well forever. He couldn't remember not liking her, but he'd tried to get rid of the feeling since in their fifth year she'd told him that he was just as bad as Severus Snape. He was no Severus Snape. But if that was her opinion of him he might as well give up…

"Hurry up Prongs…" Sirius called.

James jogged to catch up with them.

They found a fireplace and travelled to Sirius's apartment. Remus was already sitting at the table, reading through his Defence Against the Dark Arts book.

"Interesting reading?" Sirius asked sarcastically.

"Yeah," Remus replied seriously.

He looked up and spotted Lily. "Whoa…hi.'

He turned red. Sirius's evil mischievous grin reappeared. James smiled at Sirius' grin, he knew exactly what he was thinking.

An owl flew through the window and into the wall, falling on the floor. Sirius rolled his eyes and picked up the _Daily Prophet_ from the ground, unfolding it.

His expression froze.

"What is it?" Remus asked.

Sirius turned the page to show them all the picture on the front. It was a large skull hanging in the sky above a large mansion. The picture was almost still, except for a tree swaying in the wind. The heading read _"Three murdered, mysterious skull appears above house."_

"I know these wizards," Sirius whispered. "Well, two of them is are wizards any how…ones married to a muggle."

Just then the door opened and Peter Pettigrew walked into the room. He was short, fat and ugly, to put it in blunt terms. He'd attached himself to Sirius in first year and hadn't let go. Sirius didn't seem to mind though, James trusted him and Remus liked everyone so he'd become part of their group.

"Oh, sorry – did I interrupt something?" he asked, the added. "Hi Lily."

"Hi Peter," Lily said, smiling. "All ready for your last year at Hogwarts?"

Peter looked afraid at the prospect of having to leave school. "Yeah."

"Check this out," Sirius said, sliding the paper across the table to where Peter was standing.

He picked it up, and his expression of worry about school turned into an expression of pure terror.

"I…it…what…who…" he stuttered.

"Yeah, kinda gives off that effect doesn't it?" James said.

Sirius walked over to the fireplace and pointed his wand at it. Within a second it was alive with fire. He stood and watched it silently.

"Padfoot you OK?" James asked.

He still remained silent. James walked over and stood next to him.

"What do you know that we don't?" he asked.

"It's him," Sirius replied.

"Who's him?" James asked.

"The person who made the mark…or at least his follower," Sirius said.

"Who is it?" James asked again.

"Voldemort," Sirius said.

They all looked confused.

"Who?" Remus asked.

"Lord Voldemort, he's some powerful dark wizard who's been plotting for years to take over. My parents were supporters of his cause, although I don't think they're involved with him…well they weren't when I left," Sirius turned around and faced everyone else. "That's his mark…it means he's become powerful enough to begin killing…"

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**A/N: Hope you enjoyed PLEASE REVIEW!! **


	2. Chapter One

**A/N: I couldn't leave u with just the prologue!! Here's more!! Hope you enjoy! I think it went a bit long lol…**

**Chapter One  
**

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James and Sirius ran through the barrier onto platform 9¾, the train was whistling, signalling that it was about to leave. They quickly rain to the train. Five minutes later they were walking through the train, trying to find an empty carriage…or at least one with their friends in it. They eventually came across a carriage where Remus and Peter were sitting. Peter was reading a book while Remus had fallen asleep in his corner, as usual.

Sirius looked at his watch, which told him the time, date and day of the week. "Hmm, that time of the month Moony?"

Remus chuckled and opened his eyes. "You make me sound like a girl Padfoot…"

"What do you mean? You aren't…oh I'm sorry I never realised," Sirius grinned and sat down next to Peter.

James took a seat next to Remus who had now rolled over and gone back to sleep again…or was at least trying to. James pulled out that day's _Daily Prophet_ and flicked through it mindlessly. There was nothing new in it. The reports about the skull mark seemed to have disappeared, probably by order of the Ministry of Magic.

The door opened and James looked up. Teryl Chang and Lily Evans were standing there.

"You think there's room for us?" Teryl asked. "There is absolutely _no_ room anywhere else."

The three awake guys nodded silently, in awe that Teryl and Lily would even want to sit with them. Well Lily was pretty much friends with Remus and seemed to have been nice enough to the rest of them on the holidays, but it was still a strange experience. Teryl was in Ravenclaw, also in her seventh year, but James couldn't ever remember her having talked to any of them before. She looked over at Sirius and hid a smile.

Sirius was staring out the window, completely oblivious to the fact that every girl in the school was in love with him. Teryl sat down next to Sirius and looked at him again. He still didn't notice. James found it extremely entertaining.

Lily sat down next to him and he suddenly lost all interest in watching Sirius and Teryl.

He looked sideways at Lily. She smiled at him.

"Long time no see," she said.

"Yeah…" James replied. "You ever end up getting that ice-cream? Our plans for the day got kinda…I just wasn't in the mood for ice-cream after that."

"Yeah it kinda ruined the day…" she looked at the _Daily Prophet _in James' hand. "Anything new?"

"No, I think the Ministry's gone and hidden it from the public," said James.

"No surprise there," Sirius said.

Teryl looked as if her dream had come true, he'd talked and stopped staring out the window. Then her expression turned to confusion.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" she asked.

"The dark mark that appeared above the house of the murdered couple yesterday morning," Sirius said.

"The Mackenzie family?" Teryl asked.

Sirius cringed. "Yes the Mackenzie family."

Lily kicked Teryl in the shin. James would have grinned if the situation wasn't so grim. So she did have a violent side. The door to the train flew open again, this time the glass shaking.

They all turned to face Lucius Malfoy, Tom Goyle, David Crabbe and a fourth year called Toby McNair all stood in the doorway.

"Hey Potter, Black & Lupin, how'd you three get such good looking girls? You paying them by the minute?" Lucius teased.

"Actually Malfoy, we chose to sit here," Lily said.

"I don't want the opinion of a stupid little mud-blood," Lucius responded.

"Back off Malfoy," James replied.

"Ha…" Lucius said. "What you gonna do? Give me a detention? You forget you're not a prefect Potter."

"No, but I am," Remus had woken up.

"I thought prefects were supposed to be good role models. I don't know how anybody with clothes in that state that yours are could possibly be a good role model,' Lucius continued.

"If you don't shut up you're going to regret it," Lily said, standing up, her wand out of her pocket and aimed at Lucius' face.

"Ooh…I'm sooo scared," he replied, grinning.

Crabbe, Goyle and McNair all grinned as well.

"Watcha gonna do Evans…jinx me?" Lucius teased.

"_Petrificus Totalus," _Lily said, and Lucius froze and fell to the ground.

Sirius snickered, but James waited carefully to see the reactions of the others. Instead of defending their friend and responding with magic, Crabbe & Goyle grabbed Lucius and dragged him away.

McNair on the other hand pulled out his own wand.

"_Expelliarmus!_" James said and the wand flew out of McNair's hand.

He screwed up his nose, but didn't say anything. Instead he walked up to the entrance to the compartment and stood there for a moment.

"You watch it Evans…and you too Potter…you'll regret this," McNair said quietly, before slamming the door shut and stormed off down the carriage to find Crabbe and Goyle.

"Jerk," Lily said, but there was no depth in her anger.

She wasn't angry, she was afraid.

She sat back down and pulled out a muggle book and started reading it. James kept watching the door. There was something different about the way that fight had turned out. Why was McNair suddenly following around Lucius and his buddies? He was the ringleader of his own little gang in his year. What did he need them for? It was almost as if they'd been drawn together by something else.

James leaned over slightly, trying to see what muggle books were like. Lily slowly turned and looked at him.

"Did you want something?" she asked.

"Uh…can I see?" James grinned, trying to hide his true feelings of worry that something bad was going to happen.

"If you want…" Lily said, handing him the book.

_Macbeth_ seemed to be written in an extremely strange way. James flicked through it from front to back, fascinated by the still pictures.

"It's a play, not all muggle books are set out that way," Lily informed him.

"Ah…I see," James said.

"It's Shakespeare, he's famous," Lily continued.

James wasn't really interested but he listened to her telling him information anyway. He didn't want to be rude, it was the first time in his 6 years at Hogwarts that she'd ever been nice to him and he wasn't going to ruin it.

They finally reached Hogwarts and everyone piled off the train. James spotted Hagrid immediately, not that it was very difficult. Hagrid was big and tall. He was the ground keeper for Hogwarts and James, Sirius, Remus and Peter liked to visit him in their spare time.

"Hiya James," Hagrid said. "Dun look like it's a good night ter be takin' the first years over that lake."

James looked over to the lake and saw the extremely high waves hitting the sides of the cliffs. The first years standing near Hagrid looked afraid as they heard him say that.

"We've survived worse Hagrid," James grinned, remembering their first time on the boats.

He'd been thrown out of it and had gotten soaked through completely.

"That giant squid thing will push you back in if you fall out, don't worry!" Sirius was telling the first years.

"I wouldn't trust him if I was you," came a sneering voice from behind them. "He's a liar and a traitor."

Sirius turned around to face a fifth year boy. He also had black hair which fell into his dark eyes…but there was something much more evil about him. Maybe it was the Slytherin uniform, but James thought it was just something about him.

"Get lost Regulus," Sirius spat.

The darkness, the bad weather and the previous experience on the train was making James feel as if this situation was just the beginning of plenty of bad situations to come that year.

"Lets go Sirius," James said, grabbing his arm.

Sirius kept glaring at his younger brother.

"Why should I get lost? You're already lost, why don't you just wander off further?" Regulus said, looking sure of himself, even though he was even shorter than Sirius.

"I'm not lost you ignorant little twit," Sirius said quietly, but his tone was scary. "I'm the only one in our family who has _any_ idea about anything. The rest of you are just scared little followers who pretend to think for themselves but really you can't!"

"Shut up!" Regulus said back, getting angry. "Shut up shut up SHUT UP! Why am I even talking to you? You might as well be a filthy mudblood yourself."

With that he spat at Sirius' feet and stormed off to join his Slytherin friends.

"Ignore him Sirius," Remus said, grabbing his other arm.

Sirius was fuming, they could all sense it.

James looked down at the few first years who were still standing there and hadn't run off. They looked terrified. He would be too.

"You should get to your boats," James said, pointing in Hagrid's direction.

"I don't wanna come here anymore," a small chubby boy burst into tears.

Hagrid came over and took him away. The rest of the first years followed, eyeing Sirius suspiciously over their shoulders.

Sirius spun around, shaking off both James and Remus' helping hands and stormed towards the carriages that would take him to the school building. James turned to find Lily looking worried.

"Is he OK?" she asked.

"No," James replied.

They all looked at him climb onto the horseless carriage and stare blankly ahead.

"Who was that?" Lily asked, curiously.

"His brother," James replied.

She looked at him, surprised. "He has a brother? I never knew that…"

"Not many people do, they don't talk to each other," James told her, looking at her for the first time in the eyes.

She looked away quickly, back towards the carriage Sirius was sitting in and began walking over towards it.

James followed.

Peter and Remus remained standing alone. Only Peter saw the reaction of Remus to James following Lily. Everyone knew James Potter fancied Lily Evans, little knew that Remus Lupin felt exactly the same. Remus kicked the ground hard and sulkily walked after them. Peter followed, watching Lucius and his buddies hanging around laughing. For the first time Peter seemed to have realised that Sirius and James weren't all powerful.

They all piled into the Great Hall and waited for the first years to arrive. James took his seat at the Gryffindor table and looked around. There was a miserable feel to the day. He didn't know if it was the storm that was happening above their head or if it was something else, something more sinister.

"Well isn't this cheery?" Sirius muttered.

Peter nodded. "Yeah I always love being back at Hogwarts."

Sirius, James and Remus shared a look of exasperation at Peter's thickness. He just didn't seem to get the concept of sarcasm. The door flung open and a hoard of soaking wet, unhappy looking first years trudged into the hall sulkily. Hagrid on the other hand looked happy, as usual.

He lead the first years to the front and the sorting began. Sirius began playing with his fork, prodding his plate as if willing there to be food on it. James pulled the snitch he'd stolen in his fifth year out of his pocket and looked at it. He'd stolen it just before his OWL's and hadn't yet returned it to the school. They didn't seem to be missing it.

"Zera, Alice."

The last name was called and everybody sighed with relief as she was sorted into Ravenclaw. Dumbledore stood up and addressed the school.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts," he started. "I have been asked to remind you that the forbidden forest is out of bounds, to all year levels – no exceptions. Also keep clear of the Whomping Willow as we had one too many injuries from people trying to get close to it last year," here he looked at Sirius, James, Remus and Peter – the tree had been planted for Remus's sake to stop people from finding the tunnel which took them to the shrieking shack once a month. "Filch has asked me to remind you that anyone being caught doing magic in the corridor will be in big trouble, a list of items that are banned has been posted outside Filch's office."

He paused and looked around. "I am to warn you, that this year may not be an easy one. Evil has begun to rise among us…" he glanced at the Slytherin table, some of the members of it grinning as if they knew exactly what was happening. "If any of you come across any dark magic I urge you, do not try and fight it – report it to me directly and immediately. I will deal with it."

He looked around, then smiled.

"On a happier note, I hope you have no need to worry about this, and enjoy your year at Hogwarts. Tuck in," he rose his arms and food appeared on the tables in front of everyone.

Sirius already had his food on his plate by the time James turned back around to face them. He spotted Lily to his right with a couple of friends. He watched her smile and laugh as they started eating. He smiled, she was pretty when she was happy. Her hair was such a lovely, dark red colour. He remembered two students who'd been in 6th year when he'd first arrived, Arthur and Molly, he'd always thought they were related – they both had the same bright red hair. Turned out that they're weren't related, but they did get married three years after leaving school. Arthur Weasley had helped him out with homework a few times in his first year, he'd liked them.

He realised he was still watching Lily. She also seemed to notice this at the same time. Instead it glaring at him like she had for the past six years, she smiled softly.

James looked away quickly and, realising he had no food on his plate, grabbed as much as he good and avoided looking in Lily's direction for the rest of the meal. Instead he decided to worry himself with what Dumbledore had warned them about. Something was wrong in the world of wizards, so how come no one knew anything about it? Except, seemingly, Sirius and the Slytherins.

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**A/N: Please review!! **


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